It would be possible to put a play corner in the first two drawings but not in alternative 2. I would recommend a corner of storage furniture to corral the toys. I am usually a fan of built-ins but not in this case because eventually the kids will outgrow their toys and you won't need that storage there anymore. The built-in exception would be a window seat under one of those windows on the plans. Some of the storage could be cabinets or bookshelves for bins or toys underneath a window seat. I'm not a fan for toy box style storage because they either become a black hole or the kids throw everything out of them looking for what they want and then do't put the rest of it back. As for the kitchen placement, near to the deck would be best in you like to eat outdoors on the deck or entertain on the deck. We entertain a lot and the kitchen is on the other side of the house from the patio. It's a real pain and a big part of my design brief for the architect was for the kitchen to be next to the patio. I even wanted a pass-through window from the kitchen sink to the patio for ease of clean up but unfortunately I wasn't able to work that out.

Valspar has identified coordinates for Pale Bloom. Choose one of the darker colors for the stair wall. Be aware that the wall and your kitchen cabinets are going to abut visually, so choose both colors carefully. I like the third box...the Navaho but darker color on the strip with the green for stair wall. https://m.valsparpaint.com/color-detail.php?id=2667 Example of green with brown

@3onthetree - thanks for the feedback. #2 - I'd say you caught an error or inconsistency. I believe it is supposed to a 2 ft step with ~1 ft beams (10" actually). making it a 13 ft ceiling and not 12 ft as shown. Will need to clarify. #3 - that is correct on the original/current plan there are no headers shown. (I suspect they may be forced to put a header there to carry the load of the beams across the Living Rm - purely a guess on my part). But your last sentence on #3 really gets to the heart of the issue. All interior doors are 8 ft. so technically they have an 8 ft header. There are a several entry ways that are 'thicker' at around 12" with arches starting at 8' (and peaking at roughly 8' 6"). That means the Entry and Vestibule have always been 'unique'. Bringing the entry out 4 inches from Vestibule wall allows me to introduce an arch with symmetrical columns. That somewhat matches the arch on the other side of the same public space that also has an arch protruding slightly and is between the kitchen and dining areas. So that leaves the vestibule as the odd one. With an 8 ft header it would be the same height as all the other headers with doors - albeit there is no door there. That was about the best I could come up with. Or we could leave the entry to the vestibule as designed - open all the way to 9 ft instead of the 8 ft header. But that would be more 'unique' than having an 8 ft header like doored entryies. #4. Ignoring doors - there are no other wing walls except a couple short ones in walk in pantry. But to keep consistent with the 12" thick arched entryways elswhere - the entry wall may need to be tripled with 2x4s not doubled to get it more consistent. Something like this: Or This - the later one below having the arch extend 8 in vs 4 in away from Vestibule wall... #5 - I was concerned that if we double up the thickness of the vestibule wall especially on the inside (bookcase) it would throw off the depth of the FP relatively to the other side of the FP. Currently both sides of the FP are 1'-10". Which was an argument to leave the vestibule side of the wall as-is. My 3D sketches are very crude and I did not include things like lights around the front door - just threw a door on there to give us a rough idea on how it might visualize is all. @3onthetree - thanks,

This is what I see right now. My eye always goes up from the TV (under lower right side of pic.) I cropped off the bottom because there is a bunch of stuff I am storing in the area right now. It could be that the line of crown moulding is messing with my head. I want to beef that up and paint it white. (I will beef it up by adding trim under it but it won’t add depth.) The wall color will also be much lighter. Here is a sample of what I think the crown moulding will look like when I’m finished: I love the metal wall sculpture. It won’t be leaving anytime soon. The light fixture was one of my first purchases, and I got the fan to go with it. Sort of an ”industrial farmhouse” look because it worked with the brick of the fireplace. So all hardware and fixtures and art are staying for now. I can play with paint and see if that changes how I feel about that corner. The furnishings and floor don’t annoy me. Just the ceiling and that outside corner and the closed-in 7’ wall that has the TV on it. What you don’t see is the entry into the living room. It is tiny. I need to keep a thruway open in that space (lower right corner of diagram). (Beverly, I just noticed you removed a wall. That is staying. there is a staircase behind it. The opening to the living room is a 34” wide opening at the bottom right of the diagram. However… that wall runs parallel to the joists, I think. So it may be just that it needs a support post at the base of the staircase. Maybe I could once again consider opening up that staircase wall, and keeping the post in place. I didn’t want to install a new beam to support the upper level, but that wall may not have support beams. This is similar to how the open staircase would look, but one post would go to the ceiling and the other would be normal height and up one tread. All 13 steps would likely show. I still would need some open space in front of that wall. I don’t need much furniture - dogs love open rug space.) I’ll revisit this after the room is cleared and some temporary paint is up.